Sovereign Wealth Fund: Govs meeting inconclusive

Posted by admin Governors Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

ABUJA— STRONG indications emerged yesterday that after a meeting of well over five hours, the thirty-six state governors under the aegis, Nigeria Governors’ Forum may dump the proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund, SWF by the Federal government.

The governors at the end of the meeting which took place at the Rivers State Governor’s Lodge, Asokoro, Abuja, could not arrive at a definite resolution on the matter as the meeting was inconclusive, just as they also after the meeting drove to Villa for another brainstorming exercise with President Goodluck Jonathan on issues relating with SWF, constitutional amendment, excess crude account, among others.

Briefing Journalists after the meeting, Chairman of the Governors’ Forum and Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi disclosed that the governors were heading for another round of session with the President to marshal out their points and position on the very salient issues of national concern.

From left; Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River State, Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, Governor Peter Obi of Anabra State and Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and Chairman of Governors’ Forum, during a meeting of the governors in Abuja, Wednesday. Photo: Henry Unini

Meanwhile, Secretaries to the governments of the 19 northern states met in Abuja to deliberate on ways to revamp the dwindling fortunes of the New Nigerian Newspapers, NNN, and the New Nigerian Development Company, NNDC.

The meeting of the Secretaries took place at Niger Governor’s Lodge at Asokoro and was held behind closed doors, but briefing Journalists, the Coordinator and SSG of Niger State, Daniel C. Shashere, who disclosed that the meeting became imperative against the backdrop that the body’s task would be to make recommendations to the Northern Governors Forum, NGF on how the two entities can be repositioned.

Yesterday’s meeting of the thirty-six state governors came barely fourteen days after negotiations between the Federal Government and the governors on the implementation of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, SWF were deadlocked.

According to governor Amaechi, the governors had nine items on the agenda, but discussed only four, adding, ‘’Gentlemen of the press, Iam sure that you have seen that this is five hours of meeting and the meeting was called basically to look at constitutional amendment and have the contributions of the governors on constitutional amendment.

‘’The meeting was inconclusive because there were a lot of items that we could not deliberate on, we have deferred the meeting to two weeks from now when we will met and conclude and then issue the communiqué to the press. The other thing is that we are going to have a meeting with the President on the Sovereign Wealth Fund, those are the issues.”

When asked on whether the governors deliberated on the proposed removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal government, governor Amaechi simply said, ‘’the federal government is dealing with it.” Vanguard also gathered that the governors are insisting on having control over state electoral Commission, just as a source at the meeting said that the case is like a fight to finish between the federal government and the governors where if the presidency uses the national assembly members, the governors will go to their respective state and use members of state Houses of Assembly to frustrate the move.

Present at yesterday’s meeting were governors of Edo, Rivers, Adamawa, Katsina; Benue; Niger; Kebbi; Kaduna; Ondo; Yobe; Plateau; Ebonyi; Imo; Anambra; Enugu; Ogun; Taraba; Cross River and Akwa Ibom.

Also present were deputy governors of Jigawa, Kwara, Oyo; Kogi, Delta and Sokoto.

Speaking further on the Northern State Secretaries’ meeting, Daniel C. Shashere noted that the present pitiable state of the NNN and NNDC had been of great concern to the northern governors, adding that they were now determined to proffer workable and lasting solutions.

It would be recalled that Chairman, Northern Governors’ Forum and Niger State Governor, Muazu Babangida Aliyu had said at the last meeting of the body that the two issues would be discussed in the next meeting after the SSGs had made their recommendations.

-Vanguardwp_posts